Category: News

Blockchain startup Crypterium headed by former VISA UK CEO is making crypto that little bit easier so even your Grandma could use it.

Crypterium, a Blockchain based startup has introduced a new feature that enables anyone to send cryptocurrency using just the recipient’s phone number. The transfer happens almost instantly and the technology is able to process a million transactions per second due to its off-chain technology. This simplifies usage and opens up usability to anyone who can send a text message.

The recipient does not need a wallet in place to receive the cryptocurrency, instructions are sent via a text message on how to access and use the funds, making it extremely easy to send Bitcoin to your grandma, friend or someone you owe money to anywhere in the world.

Crypterium takes direct aim and addresses the elephant in the room when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Crypto currently sucks at being user friendly for the many non-tech savvy users. They partly aim to solve this by removing the need for complicated wallet addresses and with speeding up transaction times, which at the moment for popular cryptocurrencies could take anywhere from minutes to days if the network is congested.

Former Visa UK CEO Marc O’Brien currently sits as the CEO at Crypterium and has set a goal of bringing the crypto industry mainstream and making it more user friendly.

“We’re on our way to the 21st century’s “Netscape moment”, the day when a California startup’s eye-popping market debut illuminated the World Wide Web for millions of people, otherwise only vaguely familiar with its potential and promise,” – he explains, mentioning that his own startup, Crypterium, “makes buying, selling and spending of cryptocurrency in everyday life as easy as possible, and that’s what will bring the next billions of people to using crypto.”

“We have analyzed the most popular crypto wallets in the market, and none of them offer anything like it, though it sounds so exciting,” O’Brien says.

We spoke to Crypterium CEO, Marc O’Brien about the future in banking:

1. What benefits does handling the transactions off-chain provide? Does this defeat the purpose of the Blockchain? How does Crypterium prevent double spend issues?

We are aiming to create a universal solution for implementing cryptocurrency into the existing payment infrastructure, and it’s currently impossible to achieve our goal without running operations off-chain. You just can’t implement decentralized systems into existing protocols and payment systems. Using off-chain allows us to merge those two completely different worlds.

We don’t think it is defeating the purpose of the blockchain, but it definitely helps to make blockchain mainstream.

To prevent double spending, we are implementing a technology based on a smart contract that needs approvals both from our user and from us to run the transaction.

2. Can you explain how consumers will make the shift from lets say using there VISA card with their high street bank to paying for a pint of milk at the corner shop with Crypterium?

It’s just the matter of habit. Once people try paying with crypto and see the advantages, they wouldn’t want to go back to fiat.

As CEO of Visa UK, one of my favorite projects was to work across the industry and build contactless for Europe. The vision that we had was to actually make contactless an everyday experience for consumers to be able to buy low value items like newspapers or coffee quickly and conveniently with a contactless card. It seemed very unusual at the beginning, but today, can you imagine your life without contactless payments?

3. Traditional banks offer many security features such as fraud prevention, refunds etc. This often drives consumer trust and authority. With crypto this is a major concern, particularly because it is all still new technology and the fact that it is sometimes associated with a sketchy darknet past. How will consumers trust your cryptobank?

Our app meets all the security requirements for traditional mobile banks. We use the most advanced security features, and our app was reportedly audited in accordance with the highest banking standards.

We are Safety Leaders Award Winner 2017, we have PCI DSS compliance certificates, and we have decades of experience in payments industry to help us build a secure product.

We also offer refunds on the purchases. Right now, you can top up your phone with crypto, and if there’s any problem, we have a well-functioning refund system to

Moreover, we are looking for an insurance partner to provide something like FDIC insurance.

4. How does Crypterium work with current financial legislation? How does it operate within those frameworks? Do these frameworks stifle adoption or cause any complications?

The situation differs from country to country, and we’re working on building relation with regulators worldwide as Crypterium is a global project. We already have three licenses, and we have applied for more. We can definitely see interest in most of the countries, and a shift from attempts to ban crypto to attempts to learn and understand this new industry.

5. Many crypto firms who offered debit cards such as XAPO have slowly been cut off from the merchant networks for reasons that have never been clear. Crypterium integrates with these card terminals currently present in shops but how do you plan to secure this partnership moving forward? As with these other services could the traditional banks simply shut out Crypterium. Are you seen as competition?

I don’t want to comment on our competitors, but some of them have made some obvious mistakes violating financial regulation. Our lawyers make sure that we comply with legislation in every region we’re entering, we are 100% transparent to regulators and governments. It takes time, it takes effort, but it secures our future and allows us to build a product that will last.

I also want to indicate that we don’t integrate with card terminals. We partner with banks to issue virtual cards that our users will use to pay at any NFC terminal, or via QR codes, etc. We are also working on unique solutions for e-commerce platforms and site builders to let the merchants receive crypto payments.

Last but not least, we always have plan B, if something goes wrong with one of our partnerships. And then plan C, D and E.

Crypterium allows you to “pay with crypto anywhere in the world” and works just like a traditional bank but without a 3rd party. Assets are held securely in your cryptobank and can be used to purchase goods in real-time via the standard contactless card readers present in many shops, this is done via a virtual card attached to your Crypterium app.

Bitcoin appeared to lose vital $7k support earlier this week dropping to $6.9K on the 5th of August, but a small rally may soon be on the horizon from technical analysis of the charts.

What we might be seeing at the moment is a bearish decline from taking into consideration the 50-day moving average (MA) where selling pressure failed to push the price lower than $6.9k due to the strong resistance.

At the time of writing the price reached $7,287.91 on Huobi with Bithumb not far behind at $7,255.52 per Bitcoin, but western exchanges are much slow on the corrective rally with the price at $7,188.46.

At the time of writing the the price of one Bitcoin on the largest exchange by 24 hour volume, BitForex is $7,098.84

This strong buying support behind the 50-day moving average could be an early indicator of a bullish August with a rally towards $7,500 – $7,600 expected.

This change of market is based on strong rumours circulating that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may finally give the green light to a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) at the end of this week when the SEC meet on the 10th of August.

In other news major Swiss-based banks, CoinBase and Goldman Sachs are enhancing custody services for their big institutional clients which will see a secure cryptocurrency service for storing large amounts of crypto.

Leading crypto-backed loans provider Nexo has signed a partnership with UTRUST

Nexo, the world’s first instant crypto-backed loans platform, has announced that they have signed a partnership with the crypto payment platform UTRUST (known as the Paypal of Crypto) for the integration of Nexo’s instant loan solution on the UTRUST platform.

“PayPal Credit” for the Crypto Industry

As a result of the agreement, UTRUST will integrate Nexo’s instant crypto-backed lending capabilities on UTRUST’s platform in order to provide crypto holders with the option to make delayed payment purchases, quite similar to PayPal Credit.

“We are thrilled by the possibilities our partnership with Nexo opens up for the crypto world,” said Nuno Correia, CEO of UTRUST. “We are joining forces to further build on our mission to provide consumers and merchants with a reliable payment infrastructure, allowing them to tap into the full potential of cryptographic technologies.”

The partnership expands the two companies’ existing infrastructures, allowing buyers to make secure purchases while HODL-ing their crypto assets.

“One of the main barriers to cryptocurrencies’ mainstream adoption has been an inadequate payment infrastructure and merchant network, limiting consumers’ buying choices and, ultimately, disturbing their purchasing experience,” said Georgi Shulev, Nexo’s Managing Partner. “The partnership between Nexo and UTRUST is intended to correct this deficiency and empower buyers and merchants alike to tap into the unlimited capabilities of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.”

Nexo helps crypto investors unlock the value of their wealth by providing them with instant loans in USD, EUR and USDT (Tether) against their crypto-holdings. By securing their assets in the Nexo Platform, rather than selling them, clients obtain immediate access to cash and keep the upside of future value appreciation of their cryptocurrencies and tokens. The concept has quickly gained an enormous following amongst crypto miners, hedge funds, ICO companies and many more. Investors of all sizes and nationalities have found various reasons why Nexo is their first association with crypto-backed loans.

Benefits for Consumer and Merchants

UTRUST’s platform enables consumers to enjoy the comfort of paying with cryptocurrencies in a secure way. It acts as a third-party mediator, holding funds on each payment until the seller delivers the product or service. In addition, it protects buyers and sellers from market volatility, by converting cryptocurrencies to fiat immediately after payment.

The company allows for friendly dispute resolutions between buyers and sellers. In case the parties fail to reach an agreement, UTRUST steps in and refunds the buyer, upholding standards like those of Paypal.

Integrating Nexo’s crypto-backed lending capabilities within the UTRUST payment platform benefits all parties in a number of ways:

Consumers can make purchases with cryptocurrencies while keeping their crypto assets and enjoying any value appreciation;

Merchants can increase their revenues by offering more flexible payment options, seamlessly adding a revolving line of credit to their stores without no extra cost or effort;

In broader terms, the service will further enhance cryptocurrencies’ real-world applications and pave the way for mass adoption.

Nestlé, the largest food company in the world is tracking baby food products on the blockchain as part of a food industry exercise with nine other major food companies.

UPDATE: Nestlé has confirmed that Phase 3 of the Blockchain trial will testing products outside of the US which will be Mangoes from Columbia. The Phase 1 test last year on Libby’s product with single ingredient: pumpkin

The Blockchain implementation will be used to track the ingredients of its baby food product Gerber, with the goal of reducing food recalls and increasing consumer trust. Customers will be able to trace the origins of all ingredients and see where they have come from on a public ledger.

Speaking to CIO Journal’s Kim S. Nash, “People want to know, quite rightly, where ingredients they give to their baby have come from,” he said.

“Nestlé tracks ingredients across Blockchain from suppliers to Babies mouths”

The Swiss headquartered company is working in conjunction with nine other major food companies including Walmart Inc, International Business Machines Corp and rival Unilever PLC to develop a system called Food Trust which leverages blockchain technology to create a single record shared among the firms to speed up investigations of bad food or products that are recalled.

The Nestlé blockchain experiment is making progress but is still in its early stages as the whole supply chain infrastructure requires redevelopment.This includes shipping, processing, trucking and many software stages currently used.

The supply chain industry is one of the hottest areas where Blockchain can be implemented. Just earlier this year a food scare saw twelve million boxes of baby milk being recalled in a salmonella scandal by French dairy giant Lactalis. With Blockchain technology implemented into the supply chain process food recalls, ingredients, shipping, tracking and other areas become transparent and subsequently prevent and quickly resolve such issues.

Earlier this year the UK’s Food Standards Agency trialed blockchain technology to ensure compliance in cattle slaughterhouses, one of the many governments and large companies around the world who are also looking into the benefits of the blockchain.

Radar Relay CEO Alan Curtis said: “The support from these leading venture capital and investment firms — many of whom also participated in our seed funding round last year — validates our progress towards onboarding the world to the token economy. Executing on our mission may take time, but with their support and industry knowledge, we can build an enduring, multigenerational company.”

Founded in 2013, San Francisco-based Blockchain Capital is one of the most established and active venture investors in the blockchain space. In March 2018, Blockchain Capital raised $150 million USD for its fourth fund, bringing its total value of assets under management to $250 million USD. Since its inception, Blockchain Capital has helped finance leading blockchain companies, protocols, and tokens such as Circle, Coinbase, ShapeShift, and Kraken.

Blockchain Capital Partner Spencer Bogart said: “The Radar Relay team has consistently demonstrated a superior ability to execute, ship, and deliver product that exceeds expectations and pushes the industry to higher standards. While Radar’s delivery to date has been exceptional, the most compelling aspect is Radar’s upcoming product roadmap and the opportunity ahead. Ultimately, this is a proven team executing against a high-conviction opportunity and I am thrilled to lead the Series A and join the Board.”

Tusk Ventures is a New York-based venture capital and political strategy firm dedicated to helping emerging technology businesses navigate complex regulatory landscapes. Founder and CEO Bradley Tusk notably served as Campaign Manager for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his successful third-term campaign in 2009. Tusk and his venture capital firm have since provided political, investment, and operational guidance to more than a dozen successful startup companies including Uber, Circle, FanDuel, and Bird.

Tusk Ventures Managing Partner and Head of Investments Jordan Nof said: “Decentralized exchanges represent the next wave of innovation in cryptocurrency trading. We were highly impressed by Radar Relay’s focus on building an intuitive product for mainstream adoption and their commitment to proactively working with regulators to ensure a proper framework is established. We are excited to partner with Radar Relay and support the team’s regulatory strategy as they continue to grow their business and become the industry standard peer-to-peer trading platform.”

Since launching in October 2017, Radar Relay has welcomed thousands of users from 150 countries to its platform, onboarded 170 tokens, traded more than $150 million USD in volume, and grown its team to almost 30 employees.

For more information visit the Radar Relay blog post or radarrelay.com.

Pundi X partnership targets rollout of NexGen POS devices to customers across the Middle East for payment of bills, school fees, utilities and more

Pundi X, the leading developer of a blockchain-based point of sales (“POS) allowing consumers to pay for real goods in multiple cryptocurrencies, will make its debut in the Gulf and Middle East following a partnership with the country’s first regional fintech company: ebooc.

Ebooc and Pundi X will work closely on developing digital payment gateway services for governments, financial institutions and major corporates in the Gulf and Middle East as well as broader business lines such as blockchain-based customer loyalty programs and NFC contactless payment options.

The collaboration will bring consumers in Dubai, UAE and the broader Middle East and Gulf region the ability to conduct real time commerce through digital payments using their mobile wallets, eliminating the need for traditional payment methods.

This technology also has the potential to transform value-added tax (VAT) collection for governments in the Gulf and Middle East as blockchain technology allows for instant computation and collection of a recently-introduced VAT in the region. Ebooc forecasts the introduction of instant VAT computation as holding major benefits for merchants and governments alike and bringing substantial efficiencies in reduced manpower devoted to audits, assessments and implementation.

Ebooc and Pundi X will provide several other uses for consumers such as making retail payments; paying for government services, fees and fines; utilities and bills; telecommunication bills and school fees on POS devices running a stable, digital equivalent of traditional fiat currencies in the region.

The two companies will rollout secure and seamless payments to clients and customers via a single NexGen payment portal, offering increase functionality at substantially lower running costs to market leading solutions.

The move brings Pundi X’s world-leading, blockchain-based POS technology, XPASS card and e-wallet to the Gulf, Middle East and North Africa region for the first time with ebooc as the official partner under the terms of the strategic partnership agreement as executed.

Following meetings in Dubai and Jakarta, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Pundi X CEO and co-founder Zac Cheah and the CEO of Digital Force and co-founder of ebooc Abdulla Al Shamsi, to commit to the deployment of a soon-to-be-announced number of Pundi X devices across the Middle East.

Abdalla Al Shamsi said: “We envisage consumers in the UAE being granted the ability to make retail payments for school fees, utilities and other necessities from a world-leading blockchain-based POS device provided by Pundi X”.

Cheah said: “We are delighted by this partnership in a nation-state that has long been considered a by-word for modernity and innovation.

“This latest project confirms that Dubai is yet again a source of global leadership, this time in the emerging field of blockchain-based payments technology, with the potential to forever change the way consumers make secure, digital payments.”

Sunil Malhotra, the Managing Director Bchain and co-founder of ebooc said: “An ebooc – Pundi X partnership will deliver a differentiated customer experience through innovative features, seamless integration, loyalty solutions, enhanced security and greater convenience to Governments, businesses and consumers in Dubai, UAE and the region to make financial transactions on the NexGen platform in a smart way, bringing together various service providers under one platform.

“There is no better way to announce Pundi X’s arrival in the Middle East and North Africa than with a partnership with ebooc in Dubai – the region’s technology hub”.

ebooc, from the Arabic word for e-wallet, is the first Emirati fintech company to establish a presence across the broader region. It aims to provide a secure and seamless payment experience to clients and customers which runs on NexGen technology as a decentralized, distributed ledger which creates trust, improving efficiency levels. Its solution for retail outlets can be channeled to the governmental organizations, creating a high level of trust and transparency.

Pundi X (Currency: NPXS), a multi-cryptocurrency point-of-sale (“POS”) solution provider, empowers blockchain developers, exchange platforms, crypto traders and token holders to buy, sell, and spend cryptocurrency at any physical store in the world. The company’s solution also enables the retail store owners who are seeking to accept digital currencies so that they can do ‘cryptocurrency to fiat’ or ‘crypto to crypto’ transactions for the mainstream consumers.

The company is aiming to roll out more than 100,000 blockchain-based POS devices worldwide in a major challenge to the status quo of the US$ 2.2-trillion global retail payments market.

Yes! you read the headline right – Blockchain and Nuts made the perfect blockchain experiment

Despite the blockchain market is still young and vulnerable, the distributed ledger technologies have already penetrated different industries to prove they are here to stay.

The most recent example is the successful blockchain collaboration between the Australian Commonwealth Bank and five local and international logistics companies to ship and track seventeen tonnes of almonds from Sunraysia in Victoria, Australia, to Hamburg in Germany.

A team of high-qualified experts from the Commonwealth Bank’s Innovation Lab, trade specialists, and IT professionals came together to start the so-called Trade-chain experiment two years ago. The idea was to showcase how an innovative blockchain platform backed by distributed ledger technology and the internet of things (IoT) can facilitate the trade experiment by tracking the shipment from its home country to the final destination simultaneously to existing processes. How did it work?

Firstly, the blockchain platform digitized all the main aspects of international trade – operations, documentation, and finance. It stored all the container details, including the task list and the shipping documents on a tailor-made, private Ethereum blockchain. Any authorized partner in the process was able to monitor the location of the shipment. Furthermore, it was possible to double-check the conditions inside the container, such as humidity and temperature via four IoT devices. In addition to that, the blockchain technology allowed dedicated team members to upload various documents required by the customs – a bill of lading or proof of origin, for instance.

The main aim of the project was to explore the diverse opportunities blockchain technologies and IoT offer to improve the shipping industry and to meet its increasing demands for the future, and to increase the transparency between all parties involved. Chris Scougall, Managing Director of Industrials and Logistics in Client Coverage at the Commonwealth Bank commented:

‘’ We believe that blockchain can help our partners reduce the burden of administration on their businesses and enable them to deliver best-in-class services to their customers.”

It is worth mentioning that this is not the first blockchain-enabled global transaction for the Commonwealth Bank. In 2016, it teamed up with the US bank Wells Fargo to lead the first international trade transactions between two independent banks worldwide. They used a combination of emerging technologies, including blockchain, smart contracts, and IoT to deliver cotton from Texas, the USA to Qingdao, China.

LocalCoinSwap (LCS) has released official figures from their recent ICO, with $12,151,457 USD raised and 47,732,420 LCS sold and distributed. The token burn count was 27,267,580. In addition, they have announced that they successfully implemented the following new currencies on the exchange: ETH – BTC – LTC – DASH – BCH – ETC – Monero – Ripple – EOS – Tronix – Tether – VeChain – Binance – PowerLedger – Decision Token – Golem – Walton – Skrumble – Havven – Nomin. This means the exchange will now open with a minimum of twenty currencies as opposed to the ten we originally promised. There are also 8,000+ users registered to get into the exchange which will be launched in August 2018.

Chief Operating Officer Daniel Worsley said,

“We are working towards the launch of our exchange platform which will be peer-to-peer, inclusive and accessible, to any trader in any location. We will be offering trading out of fiat in every currency, as well as rewarding the community with dividends, so we are confident that our offering is unique in the marketplace.

LocalCoinSwap are also finalising new partnerships to strengthen their offering ahead of the exchange launch.

“We are working on new strategic collaborations continually”, Chief Marketing Officer Val Nantelov said, “including negotiating an exciting partnership with World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Horizon State – their application truly aligns with our mission to be the most democratically-run, user-controlled exchange platform out there, by enabling decentralized decision-making which empowers every participant. We’ll be sharing new updates about this evolving collaboration very soon.

“All our partnerships are aimed at improving the robustness and effectiveness of the exchange for our users, who are also the shareholders”, he continues, “much like the decision to collaborate with Havven, and use their stablecoin (NOMIN) as a price risk management tool to optimize the value of the LCS token and community venture fund. We want to ensure a completely safe, scalable and powerful platform is created, that meets everybody’s trading needs.

The LocalCoinSwap platform is designed to enrich the entire community and is the only marketplace that distributes 100% of its profits back to its community, and allows the community to vote democratically in its operation. It is a community-focused and community-owned marketplace. LocalCoinSwap is also the most financially transparent exchange on the market, with regular public announcements detailing exact revenue and expenses, all wages and all forms of income. All contract code used by LocalCoinSwap is open source and publicly viewable on our GitHub.

A new blockchain based content platform, Decentralized Accessible Content Chain, has listed their native and transaction currency DACC to the leading cryptocurrency exchange platform, KuCoin.

Deposits are now available utilizing KuCoin’s official apps on Android and iOS or direct to their website, www.kucoin.com. Buying will start at 19:30 pm UTC+8 while selling/withdrawal at 20:00 pm UTC+8.

About Decentralized Accessible Content Chain (DACC)

DACC is the world first decentralized IAM (identity and access management) based content blockchain with exceptional blockchain infrastructure and complete developer tools and templates to build any content related to DAPP. DACC is devoted to solving the concerns of unclear and abuse of content and user data rights in the digital media business.

The project’s core team members recognized as from famous institutions such as MIT, Harvard, CMU, Tsinghua with substantial experience in blockchain and software. DACC has also garnered an impressive list of early investors and partners such as TRON, Consensus Capital, D Fund, Crypto Capital, Block VC, Kim’s Capital and more.

DACC (“DAC”) has a top-notch international blockchain core community, 128 world-class advisors, and investors with backgrounds in the blockchain, investments, technology, and law. DACC’s foundation partner, Sky, is the co-founder of the 3 AM community and 499 Community. DACC not only has China’s largest community support but also has hundreds of thousands of foreign community supporters.

About KuCoin Cryptocurrency Exchange

KuCoin is a cryptocurrency exchange begun on September 15, 2017. The platform uses KuCoin Shares (KCS) in a related way to Binance. Users acquire a discount on trading charges when they use KuCoin tokens.

Overall, KuCoin intends to be a more user-friendly exchange than traditional exchanges available at present. The platform shares 90% of transaction fees with users, for example. They also offer 24/7 customer service and generous referral bonuses.

KuCoin has also been recognized for posting coin pairs before they operated other major cryptocurrency exchanges. The website highlights a list of coins scheduled to be added on their platform.

ProtonCoin rumours are “unsubstantiated” says firm

Over the last few days rumours have been circulating across social media and various crypto publications suggesting ProtonMail are exploring the idea of Initial Coin Offerings to raise funds for their project ProtonCoin.

These rumours were based on the firm registering the domain name ProtonCoin.com back in 2017 and more recently the launch of the website last month.

The website ProtonCoin.com says it wants to fulfill several goals, some of which include enabling the public to participate in the growth of ProtonMail, increase privacy and security and decentralise the organisation.

ProtonMail surprisingly quashed the rumours via a Reddit post on the official Subreddit saying they were “unsubstantiated” and “have made no announcements on this topic”. They also went on to also confirm that the domain ProtonCoin.com was owned by them.

The post further explains that ProtonMail has registered multiple domains to protect their trademark and it should not be taken literally or suggest that they are signalling an immediate ICO launch.

Despite this clarification the Reddit post still leaves many questions unanswered. On one hand you have a ProtonMail owned website that is explaining the benefits of implementing blockchain technology whilst on the other an official statement that downplays this message.

It gets even more confusing reading the questions and responses on the Reddit post, as it has been uncovered that ProtonMail recently posted that they have sought advice from the Swiss government on tokenising the company stock, specifically on the blockchain (also known as equity crowdfunding) not a traditional ICO.

Despite dabbling in the benefits of blockchain technology and funding avenues it seems nothing is certain at the moment and ProtonMail are not ready to go public with their blockchain related endeavours, if any.